Tehelka Blogs Tag

Disclaimer: This piece is going to piss off a lot of people. I mean no offence but if you do take offence, I consider it a deed well done. One of the defining sentences in the various analyses of post-Independence Hindu revivalism, which is also original is this: Hindus have been playing the game by the rules set by their enemies. [Ed: Paraphrased] Elst wrote this in his masterful Decolonizing the Hindu Mind in 2001. More than a decade ago. As we see, very little has changed since then. IfRead More

As promised to Yossarin, I hereby add, clarify, and (hope to) correct some items in Yossarin’s elucidation of Dharma. I’ve adopted his question-answer format because it offers a nice readymade template. 🙂

Introduction JK concludes his excellent post with some serious humour: So I am not sure if this research is of the Ganesha phallus quality. If you have seen any paper or book by anyone else, please leave a comment. [Ed:

Shaastropaskrutashabdasundaragirah Shishyapradeyaagamaa| Vikhyaataah Kavayovasantivishayeyasyaprabhornirdhanaah|| Tat Jaadyamvasudhaadhipasyakavayohyarthamvinaapeeshvaraah| Kutsyaahsyuhkupureekshakaanamanayoyairardhatah Paatitaah|| The King whose dominion is populated with Scholars, poets and learned men famed for Excellence, erudition, sweet speech, and a Large retinue of disciples eking Lives condemned to penury Is indeed a

Musings on Uttara Kaanda Part 1 Rama as a King The role of Rama as a king is only explored properly in the Uttara Kaanda. Ramayana ends with Rama being coronated as the king of Ayodhya. One of the more

I’m pretty sure this singular piece by Jawed Naqvi has given multiple orgasms to the worthies in our secular intelligentsia. He writes from Pakistan, and in the article, doesn’t merely parrot the same fantasy tales that our eminences call history.

Head over to this great piece by Mukta Raut. …I have observed that of all the religious communities, Hindus are the most clueless about their religion. I went to a convent school. We had a Moral Science period where the

This entry is dedicated to a wonderful person who is gifted with the rare talent of converting everything into gold. One of the more abused characters in the world of Indian epics is Rama, son of Dasharatha and husband of

Swapan Dasgupta, a writer I’ve admired for long writes in the Wall Street Journal about the BJP’s chance of making a fresh start under Nitin Gadkari. It’s really an OK piece compared to Swapan’s more incisive articles. No new insight

Today is Makara Sankranti, celebrated across India to both herald the beginning of longer days, and reap the harvest of months of backbreaking work in the fields. But the greater significance of Makara Sankranti like most Hindu festivals, is to

Preface The opening line of the Wikipedia entry on Indology reads thus: Indology is a name given by indologists to the academic study of the history, languages, and cultures of South Asia. Which only reinforces the India-as-South-East-Asia stereotype, a veil